The Origin and Development of Eurythmy 1923–1925

GA 277d — 10 February 1924, Dornach

Eurythmy Performance

Prelude in E-flat minor by J. S. Bach
“Als am dritten Tage” by Albert Steffen
“Wenn wir sagen ewiglich” by Albert Steffen
Aria from the opera “Clearco in Negroponte” by Domenico Gabrielli
“Ich irre ab” by Albert Steffen
Largo by G. F. Handel
“Es saugt die leere Finsternis” by Albert Steffen
Andante teneramente in F minor by Johann Ernst Galliard
“Waldgespräch” (Forest Conversation) from “Chinesische Tages- und Jahreszeiten” (Chinese Days and Seasons) by Li Tai Pe with music by Jan Stuten
“Selige Leichtigkeit” (Blissful Lightness) by Christian Morgenstern
‘Waldesrauschen’ (Forest Murmurs) by Franz Liszt
“Ballade à la Lune” by Alfred de Musset
Scherzo by L. v. Beethoven
“La Cigale et la Fourmie” by Jean de La Fontaine
“Le Corbeau et le Renard” by Jean de La Fontaine
Gavotte in D major by J. S. Bach

Ladies and gentlemen!

Allow me, as usual before these performances, to say a few words, not to explain the matter—explanations of art are in themselves unartistic; art must speak for itself—but simply because the eurythmy we are attempting here is an art that uses unfamiliar artistic means and an unfamiliar artistic language of form. And this requires a special understanding. It is only because of these unfamiliar artistic means and unfamiliar artistic language that I would like to say these few words.

You will see, dear audience, moving people on the stage, or groups of people moving in the room, groups of people describing certain forms in the space. All of this is accompanied either by recited or declaimed poetry or by instrumental music. What eurythmy is all about is neither one-sided mimic art nor dance, but something that lies between these two arts — against which, of course, there is no objection, but which should be fully recognized — something that lies in the middle between these two arts.

Today we can say that spoken language in its original form is no longer felt by human beings. Spoken language has become either the abstract expression of knowledge or, in a certain sense, the abstract expression of conventional communication with other human beings. And especially in civilized languages, the words used by Schiller apply: “When the soul speaks, / alas, it is no longer the soul that speaks.” Eurythmy assumes that all spoken language is ultimately something—it sounds paradoxical, but it is true—like a kind of air gesture. What animates our soul is expressed by the fact that we shape the air we breathe into certain forms and, through these forms, allow what is an inner experience (?) to reach other people. One can see that air gestures are actually the expression of the whole human being translated into sound.

The extent to which it is the expression of the whole human being is something that is known today in officially recognized knowledge; but this “something” is very little. We know the significant fact that the speech center of the brain is located on the left side of the brain and that the only exception to this is in the few people who are so-called left-handed. In these individuals, the speech center is located on the right side of the brain. From this, it can rightly be concluded that what we actually want to express in language comes from suppressed gestures, suppressed movements. Because we prefer to use our right hand for those gestures that are related to human education, knowledge, insight, intellectual or linguistic communication with other people, rather than for merely elementary expressions of our nature, that is why the mysterious connection also forms between the suppressed gestures of the right hand and the speech center, which is on the left side and which proves its connection with the right hand by the fact that it is on the right side in left-handed people. Such a connection, as can be seen between the arm and hand and the actual inner speech center of the human being, can only be understood with the help of the spiritual science or anthroposophy represented here, between all possible movements and in speech.

One can, for example, come to understand how what we call the intonation of speech — how it expresses itself when we have a sentence in the form of a question, an exclamation, and the like — that everything connected with intonation, everything that causes that nuance of speech connected with intonation, is in turn connected with the way a person moves their legs when walking, how they place their feet when standing still, how they place their feet when striding. On the other hand, we can see that a person's facial expressions have a special influence on the inner structure of sentences and everything that invisibly permeates, interweaves, and blows through the inner movement of their organism. This is particularly evident when language, rhythm, and meter take on the imaginative, pictorial element in poetry, when they take on the musical, melodious element.

This gives us, I would say, a more detailed insight and understanding of the connection between the whole human being in its organization and the way in which we as human beings reveal ourselves through spoken language, which I would say is concentrated on one organ system. One then realizes how a small child's learning to speak is actually based on suppressing that which wants to enter into gesture and movement, and transforming, metamorphosing the organic possibility of movement into that form of gesture which comes about in the shaping, in the formation of the breath stream for spoken language. Just as in the learning of speech by the small child, the form that actually flows from the soul into the movements of the body is metamorphosed into spoken language for human life, so too can everything that lies in spoken language – especially that which lies in the musical and pictorial elements of spoken language when it becomes sentence formation – be taken back and returned to human movements.

In this way, eurythmy arises in an equally inner, lawful manner, just as music arises from the organism of sounds. This gives rise to possibilities for the human organism, possibilities for movement, which individually mean as little as a single musical tone, but which in their sequence and arrangement give something similar to the melodious, harmonious element in music, the rhythmic, the metrical. This leads to a new art form.

But just as someone who enjoys music does not need to know all the individual laws of sound formation, but simply surrenders to the immediate impression, so too can that which is translated back from spoken language into the movement possibilities of individuals or groups of people have an effect in the immediate impression. Those who are not, I would say, more or less disguised philistines, but who have an open heart and an open, free mind for the expansion of artistry across the various areas that existence offers us, will have no objection to such an intended expansion of artistry through new artistic means, new artistic sources, through a new artistic language of form.

So what you see is not mimicry, it is not dance, it is a real visible language or even a visible song, And precisely when one acquires a finer sensitivity for what appears in eurythmy as an accompaniment to music, then you will learn to distinguish between dance, which comes from passion and will, and what is visible singing, not dancing, and what occurs here in eurythmy, which comes more from feeling than from passion, from emotions in the will, and thus expresses more of the inner self than dance can express.

As I said, on the one hand you will see what appears on stage as visible singing or visible speech, recitation and declamation. And it is precisely in the necessity that arises again for recitation and declamation that one can see how eurythmy must once again bring back a certain artistry that has been lost in today's unartistic times. Today, even though some people are already reversing this trend, recitation and declamation are mostly treated in such a way that the prosaic is emphasized, so that the main value is placed on the prose content of the poetry. This would not suit eurythmy, which can only shape the pictorial and musical elements. The point is that even in recitation and declamation, the secret eurythmy in the sound formation and in the musical element should be brought to the fore. This type of recitation, which seeks out the musical and pictorial, the formative and plastic elements of language in contrast to the prosaic content, has been developed over many years by Dr. Steiner and appears here in the accompaniment of eurythmy. Naturally, it has the same difficulties of understanding as eurythmy itself. But these are gradually being overcome.

In general, one can say that eurythmy is today in the beginning stages of its development. We ourselves know this very well; we are its strictest critics and know what it still lacks today. On the other hand, however, eurythmy is an art that makes use of the most perfect instrument one can have, the human organism itself. If sculpture expresses the silent soul, then eurythmy, which is moving sculpture, expresses the speaking soul. Since it makes use of the most perfect instrument, the human organism itself in all its possibilities of movement, and not just the imitation of a figure like sculpture or an external instrument like the other arts, one can say: Because the human being is a real small world, a microcosm, containing all the secrets and laws of the world, he will gradually come to realize that, through this eurythmically moving human being, the secrets of the world can indeed be artistically presented to the aesthetically observing eye of the human being.

Then, in eurythmic art, I would say as art, we will have a kind of artistic microcosm as opposed to the artistic macrocosm, into which we can immerse ourselves in admiration if we can go beyond mere sober intellectual knowledge. And so we may hope that for this very reason, eurythmy, even though it is still in its infancy and has many imperfections, has the potential to develop in such a way that it will one day be able to stand fully alongside the older arts as the youngest of the arts.